Idaho County free press. [volume] (Grangeville, Idaho Territory) 1886-current, 1887-09-23

duce, for they included strong infus-
ions of laudanum. During this month
of absolute fasting the temperature and
the pulse were natural His mind
seemed to retain its full strength.
HE occupied himself a good deal in
his private concerns" says the account
from which have obtained these par
| tlculars, the Penny Clyclopedia, -
land, as usual, interested himself iE
, public AFFAIRS To husband his
strength as much as possible, he was
advised to be much in bed; but, until
the last few days of his life, he dressed
and redressed daily, and not only
walked about his room, but through the
house. His nights were quiet, his
sleep sound and apparently refresh
ing"
Before the delirium set in which
ushered in the final stages of his fast,
the patient had very pleasant dreams,
Il popularity of which was that they
affected him as realities, insomuch that
though told by his friends that they
were but dreams he could not for more
than moment or two remain sure that
this was the case. He laughed heartily
at the recollection of the merry Jokes
which had passed during gay meet.
ing he had had-as he supposed, with
two Yorkshire Baronets whom he dined,
and told with glee (Which, considering
his approaching end, seems almost to
merit the peculiar descriptive term
ghoulish, recently applied to the Presi-
dent,) how they had pushed about the
bottle.
The mental incoherenc indicated by
the inability to distinguish dreams from
realities passed rapidly into delirium,
during which he was perpetually NUT
tering in indistinct tones, with great
restlessness and agitation. There were
now marked signs of fever, the skin
and extremities being sometimes of a
burning heat and sometimes cold ard
clammy. His pulse became feeble and
irregular, and his respiration was for
the first time during the progress of his
illness laborious and painful. He be-
came cross-eyed on the thirty third day
of total abstinence from food, and com
planned that he saw double, but the
sensitiveness of the retina was in
creased, not, as one might have ex-
pected would be the case, diminished,
insomuch that, though till this stage of
his illness he had borne well the light
which came through the window of his
bedroom, he shrieked now when the
window-blind was drawn.
In this case, as | have said, we have
stronger evidence of the power which
the human frame possesses to endure
deprivation of food than any of the fool
ish fasting men of recent times have
afforded, because they have all taken
liquid food, whereas, except from his
bath (Which, as he said, produced in
him the most delightful sensations),
our patient had no relief from either
hunger or thirst.
The othel case shall cite, while re-
sembling the HASTINGS of Succi, Tanner
and Merlatti in being fast from solid |
food only-as also in being voluntary
was more remarkable than theirs in be- |
ing of much longer duration. A young
man of studious and melancholy ma
ture began a somewhat severe course |
OF abstinence to cure certain painful |
symptoms of indigestion by which he
was troubled. His plan was to abstain |
from solid food for time, taking only |
little water daily, into which some |
orange juice had been squeezed. From
the amount given by Dr. william, super
stitlon as well as indigestion would |
seem to have had something to do with |
the form of folly into which this plan |
presently developed. The young man
withdrew from business and the So
ciety of his friends, took lodgings in |
an obscure street, and entered on a |
system of continued fasting, enlivened |
by shorthand writing. He began to
write out the Bible in shorthand, and |
had proceeded as far as the second book |
of Kings when circumstances over
which, by that time, he had no control |
induced him to desist. He persisted in |
his plan for fifty-one days without fail
ing in firmness of purpose. But about |
this time, finding his strength failing |
him, and that he was no longer able to |
rise from his bed, he began to suspect |
that he might be mistaken in imagin-
ing-as until now he had done-that |
he was preternaturally supported and |
was presently to be made the object of |
some marvellous manifestations follow |
ing an abstinence SO extraordinary.
His friends found out his retreat about
ten days after he thus began to lose
faith in the virtue of fasting. They
persuaded him to accept the ministra-
tons of medical man. 1t was on the
sixty-first day of his fast that he was
first seen by DR.. william, whose report
of the case | have followed He was
then singularly (and yet perhaps not
so very singularly) emaciated. His
abdomen was concave, his limbs so at
tenuated that the shape of the bones
could be clearly DISTINGUISHED. His